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Joe (book chapter)
"Joe" is the third chapter of Sideways Stories from Wayside School. Sypnosis Mrs. Jewls tries to teach Joe how to count, but he experiences difficulty getting the numbers in order. Plot The chapter introduces us to Joe, a kid with curly hair who doesn't know how much he has because he can't count. Mrs. Jewls asks him about this, but Joe shrugs it off, saying he already knows how to count. Mrs. Jewls bars him from going to recess and asks him to count to ten, but after getting all the numbers leading up to ten wrong, Mrs. Jewls decides it is time he finally learns. She places five pencils on his desk, and requests that he counts them, and while he does get the proper answer of five pencils, and gets there entirely wrong. Mrs. Jewls suspects Joe was just lucky, and places a batch of potatoes on his desk. Joe once again, counts unsuccessfully but gets the right answer. She places three books on his desk, only to get the same result. Mrs. Jewls decides to attempt teaching him how to count to ten correctly, which Joe is able to get down pretty quickly. Mrs. Jewls places six erasers on Joe's desk and asks him to count them. He counts to ten, counting right but getting the amount of erasers wrong. Joe remarks that when he counts wrong he gets the right answer, while when he counts right he gets the wrong answer. Mrs. Jewls bangs her head against the wall five times, and Joe counts to ten. Joe tries again with his original method and gets five, and Mrs. Jewls reluctantly accepts. The other students return from recess, and ask what was happening with Joe. Mrs. Jewls tells them that she was teaching Joe to count, but Maurecia and Joy laugh at him for it. Mrs. Jewls breaks up a fight between them and writes Maurecia's name under the DISCIPLINE list. Joe feels bad about being unable to count, and feels confused, but Mrs. Jewls assures that someday he will wake up and know how. Joe questions why he has to go to school, and Mrs. Jewls tells him that school simply speeds up the process; if Joe hadn't gone to school it may have taken him 70 years to learn how to count, and by then he wouldn't have hair on his head. The next day Joe wakes up and knows how to count, and he counts 55,006 hairs on his head. Characters * Joe * Mrs. Jewls *John *Todd *Joy (debut) *Maurecia Trivia *Joy is first mentioned in this chapter. *This is the first time potatoes appear in the Wayside School series. *While it is implied Joe has a lot of hair, as seen from a problem in More Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School, which claims he has more hair than Dana, who is stated to have long hair, 55,006 is actually below average, with 100,000 being typical for people with black or brown hair, 150,000 for blondes, and 90,000 for redheads. All of these numbers are larger than the 55,006 on Joe's head. Gallery Joe 1978.jpg|Dennis Hockerman illustration Joe 1985.PNG|Julie Brinckloe illustration Joe 2003.jpg|Adam McCauley illustration Foreign editions Joe Chapter Illustration.jpeg|Peter Allen illustration (UK) Joe Chapter Kitamura.png|Satoshi Kitamura illustration (Japan) Category:Sideways Stories from Wayside School chapters Category:Book chapters